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t part, the moment when passion was at its greatest height, or suffering appeared in its most excruciating form. The general character, accordingly, of the school, is the expression of passion or violent suffering; and in the prosecution of this object, they have endeavoured to exhibit it under all its aspects, and display all the effects which it could possibly produce on the human form, by the different figures which they have introduced. While this is the general character of the whole, there are of course numerous exceptions; and many of its greatest painters seem, in the representation of single figures, or in the composition of smaller groups, to have had in view the expression of less turbulent affections; to have aimed at the display of settled emotion, or permanent feeling, and to have excluded every thing from their composition which was not in unison with this predominant expression. The _Sculpture Gallery_, which contains 220 remains of ancient statuary, marks, in the most decided manner, the different objects to which this noble art was applied in ancient times. Unlike the paintings of modern Europe, their figures are almost uniformly at rest; they exclude passion or violent suffering from their design; and the moment which they select is not that in which a particular or transient emotion may be displayed, but in which the settled character of mind may be expressed. With the two exceptions of the Laocoon and the Fighting Gladiator, there are none of the statues in the Louvre which are not the representation of the human figure in a state of repose; and the expression which the finest possess, is invariably that permanent expression which has resulted from the habitual frame and character of mind. Their figures seem to belong to a higher class of beings than that in which we are placed; they indicate a state in which passion, anxiety, and emotion are no more; and where the unruffled repose of mind has moulded the features into the perfect expression of the mental character. Even the countenance of the Venus de Medicis, the most beautiful which it has ever entered into the mind of man to conceive, and of which no copy gives the slightest idea, bears no trace of emotion, and none of the marks of human feeling; it is the settled expression of celestial beauty, and even the smile on her lip is not the fleeting smile of temporary joy, but the lasting expression of that heavenly feeling which sees in all around
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